The cruise line business suffered a major setback during the pandemic, but the big players have weathered the storm. Bookings are finally beginning to increase, and Royal Caribbean apparently squirreled away enough cash to invest in an internet upgrade to attract returning vacationers. SpaceX and the cruise line have announced a partnership, which in the immortal words of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will deliver “kickass internet” to passengers. 

A cruise ship traversing open water is one of the few places where connectivity is still absent. Anyone who has been on a cruise before can attest to how terrible the satellite-based internet service can be. It’s expensive, and bandwidth isn’t even enough to stream a video without constant buffering. However, Starlink is much faster than the old-style satellite feeds. 

Starlink rolled out its Maritime service earlier this year, targeting private yachts and other luxury vessels. Starlink promises 100-350 Mbps down and 20-40 Mbps up for the individual Maritime service, but cruise ships can host thousands of people at once. The solution, apparently, is to load the ship down with multiple Starlink dishes. 

The announcement from Royal Caribbean shows a row of Starlink’s larger Maritime dishes mounted on the deck of a cruise ship. It’s quite the flex for the cruise line, too. A consumer signing up for Maritime service on their fancy boat has…